 ISSN 2588-0497 |
SURROGACY: INTERNATIONAL LEGAL ASPECTS
English
Year:
2025
Issue number:
2
Resume:
This study offers a comprehensive analysis of surrogacy as a global socio-legal phenomenon through the lens of international human rights law. It presents a detailed classification of types of surrogacy according to the criteria of remuneration, method of fertilization and the territorial scope in which the relevant legal relationships are realized. Particular attention is devoted to the challenges of cross-border surrogacy, which is associated with conflicts in national regulatory frameworks, as well as to the problem of the effective protection of the rights of the child. A comparative legal analysis is carried out of three main models for the regulation of surrogacy: permissive, restrictive and abolitionist. The study reveals the differentiated approaches of states to the regulation of this institution. Special attention is given to the analysis of surrogacy in three dimensions of international law: the rights of the surrogate mother under the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (fragmentation of personality and the reduction of women to the function of «birth‑giver»); the rights of the child under the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (risks of child trafficking, uncertainty of legal status, the right to know one’s parents) and the rights of intended parents under the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (the absence of a «right to a child» and the impossibility of legitimizing surrogacy via the «right to found a family»). The article systematizes the practice of UN treaty bodies, demonstrating the absence of a uniform approach to the assessment of surrogacy; it examines the opposing positions of Special Rapporteurs: Maud de Boer‑Buquicchio, who advocates international legal regulation to minimize risks, and Reem Alsalem, who proposes an abolitionist model involving the criminalization of intermediaries and commissioning parents and the decriminalization of surrogate mothers. The conclusion substantiates the need to develop a joint general recommendation by the UN treaty bodies and proposes recognizing surrogacy as incompatible with states’ obligations to combat trafficking in human beings and violence against women.
Key words:
international human rights law, surrogacy, children’s rights, women’s rights, reproductive violence, United Nations
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